NEW ORLEANS — Dr. Linda Coyle was in the Mason Deville facility because of her battle with Alzheimer’s. Her sister says she couldn’t find Linda for several days after she was taken from the Independence warehouse to a new facility.
“[Linda was] very intelligent, she has a PhD in education administration, with a major in mathematics,” Jeanne Orgeron said.
Coyle was living in Mason Deville in Harvey before Hurricane Ida, when Orgeron got a call saying her sister would be taken to a facility to wait out the storm.
“You say this is our sister facility, you’re under the assumption that you took the responsibility to care for these people and your sister facility is an actual facility. A warehouse is not a facility place, it’s a storage place,” Orgeron said.
Coyle was one of more than 800 seniors inside the Independence Warehouse during Hurricane Ida.
“To think that she was shoved on a mattress on the floor lying down in a warehouse….We treat animals better than that,” Orgeron said.
But on Sept. 3, Orgeron’s sister went missing; she found out her sister had been taken to a different location. She didn’t hear from the facility. Three days passed before Orgeron found out her sister was taken first to Alexandria and now to a facility in north Louisiana.
“She’s gonna be like five 5 1/2 hours away from me,” she said. “Hurricanes are nothing new. We knew it could happen. There was no excuse for this.”